Scorched Earth
by WhiteShadow95
Summary: Seven years after the fall of the dark lord, the forces of evil start to surface once again. Follow Sorin Higgins, a fresh Hogwarts Alumnus and aspiring Auror, as he gets pulled in far deeper in the shadows as he had ever wished for.


_Disclaimer: Harry Potter and its universe are not my intellectual property, they belong to J. and Warner Brothers._

 _A/N: First story, so be kind. Also, if someone wants to beta my abysmal attempts at the English language, feel free to send me a PM. :)_

 **Prologue**

The truck that had brought his furniture took off with it's clattering motor and Sorin Higgins allowed himself to take a deep breath. The last few hours had been exhausting, but finally, he was all moved in. He considered a mountain of boxes as moved in, at least. This obviously could've been much easier could he have just used magic. Magic, the very thing he had studied for the last seven years in Hogwarts. But all things had to come to an end and so now here he was, moving into his first own place.

Really, he could've had a small apartment, somewhere in the wizarding streets of London, but thanks to the conversion rate of galleon to pound, he was able to rent a nice penthouse suite right around the corner from the Leaky Cauldron. Even though after all these years, getting an apartment in the muggle parts of London was still considered weird and reclusive, but he did not care for that. He got an amazing apartment while all his school friends were bankrupting themselves trying to live in the "cool streets". He snorted, happy with his decision and went inside to sort his stuff out.

Finally alone, he pulled out his wand and, weaving it back and forth, all the boxes in the room started to unpack themselves, his furniture hovering towards their designated spot, his clothes neatly folding themselves and placing themselves inside his wardrobe, his plates flying into the kitchen.

Another drawback of living in a muggle neighborhood was that, by wizarding law, he couldn't move into an apartment with the help of magic. Which made sense, since the muggles would surely get suspicious should anyone move in without appearing to actually take anything inside, but now, unseen, he could finally sort things out using magic and ten minutes later, he was sitting on his old, black leather couch, enjoying the smell of his new home. Slightly familiar due to all of his stuff obviously smelling the same, and the new odors of his apartment, the smog that always covered London, mixed with the faint smell of fresh paint.

Sorin laid back on his couch, a strain of his long black hair falling in his face, his ponytail having loosened while moving. He had considered cutting off his hair, but he liked how the mane of black hair gave him a mysterious aura, at least to the ones that didn't know him. It had also become a sort of fashion statement among slytherins, since that was the preferred hairstyle of Severus Snape, the war hero. Overall, given his sharp features, his dark eyes, he thought he looked quite good.

He was disturbed thinking about his looks by a pecking noise on one of his windows. He got up to let in his brown tawny owl, Irma, and used the opportunity to enjoy the view. The main reason he had picked out this specific apartment was the view. He had always been a sucker for huge windows, as he'd always felt like that made the room more part of nature itself. And boy did this apartment have windows. Over half of his walls, in fact, were made up of windows, spanning the entire height of the room and covering most of the walls that were overlooking the city. He knew he just had to set up basic privacy wards and this place would be his secret little tower over London. To think that his best friend Abby was paying the same rent to live in a room with literally no window. He snorted once again.

In Slytherin, you basically had to snort a lot. Snorting at Gryffindors, snorting at each other, snorting at the world. That's just how Slytherin liked to portrait themselves: Snorting, because they could. While he wasn't exactly proud to have been in Slytherin in his time in Hogwarts, he definitely thought that he could've gotten into much worse.

Standing there, Sorin had already been eying the letter that Irma had been holding and that he was now holding onto himself. He had chosen to think about apartments and Hogwarts instead because he knew this letter could only be his acceptance in the Auror-program… or his rejection.

Becoming an auror had been his dream all his life. Even though they weren't the war heroes they had been during the wars, they still were very respected members of the community. But above all, to a child at least, they were just cool. Their purple uniforms, their unparalleled skill with the wand, their honorary code and their slick demeanor all made them the perfect role model for young Sorin Higgins.

Now after years of learning, all it came down to was this one letter. He decided not to torture himself any further, he picked the letter off the owl's claw and unrolled it.

He had been accepted. He lowered the letter and raised his gaze once more to look over London. He had made it. Given, he'd known that the auror program usually accepted anyone that had the passing marks in their NEWTs and sorted out the wheat from the chaff using overly demanding training. But seeing it spelled out like this, he couldn't help but feel proud.

* * *

Auror-Training was to begin around the time the new Hogwarts year would start. He had wondered why that was so late, but maybe the ministry wanted to give the students one last summer holiday before they were inevitably pushed into the cruel reality that was having a job.

Sorin was fine with that. He still had to settle into his new home, try to save some of the friendships that would usually crumble after leaving school and prepare for his training. The first summer after graduating from Hogwarts certainly felt weird. There where the new Wizarding Universities that had sprung up after the war, with Britain reintegrating themselves into the international Wizarding community. It appeared the wizarding world had finally moved on to the 20th century and had realized that secondary education was a thing.

One of his best friends, Brian Larsson, had taken that opportunity and had moved to Australia to enroll in the Wizarding University of Herbology and Zoology Perth. Quite a mouthful, so no wonder people simply called it Wuhzp.

Sorin himself would be leaving Britain to train in a school that had specialized in dueling. The invitation to do that was his reward for being the best in his year in Defence Against the Dark Arts, something he had sunken in every free minute of his last year at Hogwarts.

With Brian now living in Australia, the only person he would consider his best friend would be Abby McMillan, a Hufflepuff that he had befriended in his second year. She was an incredibly smart witch and he had immediately taken a liking to her. He was honestly glad she had stayed behind in London, at least now he still had her.

To initiate his mission to save at least one friendship, he made his way over to her three days after he had moved in. It wasn't far from his own apartment to hers. Flooing would have been a faster and more direct way to get to her, but he hadn't gotten around to set that up at his place. He despised paperwork and getting the permit to open a Floo-Network-Node meant spending at least a whole day simply doing that, paperwork.

Abby had chosen to live in one of the backstreets of the Diagon Alley that had become so popular over the past years. After the war, the wizarding community had experienced a boom in population and the increasing numbers of families now needed space. It had been absolutely amazing to see the Diagon Alley stretch its wards though, allowing for entire side streets to be constructed, like a tree, finally growing its branches in all directions after being starved for decades.

The people living in these streets he was now walking in would be described by muggles as Hipsters. Small cafes where lining the street, the smell of a certain herb lingering in the air and young wizards and witches laughing all around him. He could see what people liked about this, the atmosphere was unlike any else you could find in the wizarding world.

Finally, he arrived at the house Abby was living in. The place looked somewhat run-down, yet had a weird charm to it. Featuring the classical Diagon Alley architecture, the row house already looked like it was built in the middle ages, yet it had been built just two years prior. This part of Diagon Alley had actually been one of the first constructions that were built to support electricity. Magic energy usually messed with electricity, completely disrupting the flow of it. But using specially warded metal tubes, it was possible to equip new houses with the muggle technology that had been growing in popularity. Rumor had it select houses even had internet.

Without needing to announce himself, the door swung open and a grinning Abby beamed at him. "Sorin!" she squeaked, jumping forward and trying to crush him in a hug. "Feels like I haven't seen you in ages!"

After struggling and finally succeeding in freeing himself from her grip, he ruffled her brown hair. "It's been like a week. Don't embarrass yourself like that." he chuckled.

Abby didn't blush and just huffed, stepping aside to grant him entrance. "First floor, first door on the right," she instructed him. Sorin just continued to chuckle and walked up the stairs.

Abbies apartment was close to the polar opposite to his own, small with no windows but Sorin had to admit that Abby had made the most of it. With the walls painted in bright colors, colorful wall clothes hanging from the ceiling and the bed hanging under the ceiling in a way that would be impossible without the involvement of magic, Sorin had to admit that the place felt really cozy.

After Abby had offered him the obligatory tea, they sat down on a few pillows that were grouped in one corner of the room, with an admittedly tiny coffee table to gather around. Again, it was really small but somehow felt big enough to relax.

"I really like what you've done with the place," Sorin commented, sipping on his Earl Grey tea.

"Really? I've basically just crammed all I had in here. I'm still waiting to get the permit to add a small room for my potions." she explained. To keep rents as competitive as possible, the ministry had to approve any magically added rooms in the Diagon Alley. Though, since Abby was planning to become a potions mistress and a dedicated laboratory was essentially required to do that, Sorin was sure she would get the permission.

"You know how slow the ministry works. I'm sure you'll get that permit eventually." he tried to comfort her. "I haven't even bothered to apply for Floo, knowing them they'll take months to process that."

"I know, but the waiting is killing me. How'd your application go?" she asked.

"'Got accepted, but you know how it goes. Fifty percent of applicants leave the auror program in the first year, so I don't think I was particularly lucky." he admitted.

Abby nodded and also sipped on her tea. "Might be. So how's your place?" she asked.

"Different, I guess. Bigger, but not as cozy." he shrugged. "You have to visit me too, sometime."

"I will. I am actually disappointed you haven't invited me yet."

"I didn't think that would be necessary. You know you're always welcome."

"I know, I know, just teasing," she said and laughed. "I've just been busy moving and sorting all the adult stuff out."

"Yeah, it's complicated being an adult." he agreed. "Wanna grab lunch later? I heard some crazy places have opened up around here. I also heard adults like to meet to eat."

"Oh, it's amazing. Kinda expensive though," she admitted.

"Just use your pureblood money, McMillan." he teased her, which made her roll her eyes.

"But sure, let's grab some food after the tea, like real adults. I'm also kinda starving." she finally agreed.

Which was exactly what they would do half an hour later. Abby was ecstatic to show him all the different small stores lining the streets until they reached a small italian restaurant that looked promising.

As they neared the tables that were outside the restaurant to eat outside, Sorin felt his neck hairs stand up. That was a feeling he had felt before. It signaled that something was off, yet he didn't know what. His eyes started darting around, yet he failed to spot anything out of the usual. Slightly unnerved, Sorin did his best to calm himself and sat down with the seemingly unaware Abby, who was still chattering about excitedly.

The minutes passed and after they had ordered their food, Sorin finally calmed down somewhat. His instincts were usually accurate, but there was nothing to indicate that they were in any amount of threat. Over the years he had developed a habit of being overly cautious, rather than too careless, a trait that had served him well in the seemingly constant war between Gryffindors and Slytherins. A trait that didn't seem to be too beneficial to finding friends though.

As they were eating and discussing their lives after Hogwarts, he allowed himself to enjoy the food and the conversation with his friend. It was then, that they saw the first people hurrying past them. First, just a few people that seemed stressed, uncharacteristically running down the peaceful streets. When the people seemingly fleeing the Diagon Alley increased in numbers, Sorin laid down his fork.

"Abby, something's not right," he said and Abby nodded slightly. "We need to go check what is going on."

Abby sighed and pulled out her wallet and placed a few galleons in the table, standing up. "You're right. Something's not right." she agreed and the two started heading towards Diagon Alley. Abby herself had learned to live with Sorin's quirks, but she also knew that his instincts were rarely off.

As they approached the main alley, the streams of wizards escaping the street seemed to increase even more and they had trouble not being pushed back. The source of the disturbance seemed to stem from the back part of the alley, at least judging from the directions the people were coming from. Hurrying forward, it soon became apparent that there had been some kind of fight. Smoking curse marks were visible on the ground and the storefronts, several civilians were already being treated to numerous injuries. The fight though seemed to have moved on.

"Abby, you care for the people here, I see some bad curses. I'll check out what this is all about." Sorin told Abby. It was more of an order, but Sorin knew that Abby would understand. Sorin had always been the best duelist in Hogwarts when he was attending.

Heading on, Sorin passed the wounded civilians and followed the trail of curse marks and charred stores. He turned a corner, just in time to see a familiar purple robe bursting into flames. The screams echoed in the street, as the man wearing the purple robes quickly burned to death.

Overlooking the situation, Sorin could make out around ten humans in the street, three in purple robes, obviously Aurors and seven men in black robes, wearing masks. Sorin was slightly taken aback at the sight of the masks, as they had a striking resemblance to the masks the Deatheaters of the second war would wear.

He quickly dismissed the option that these were actual Deatheaters though, the movement had been long dead, so these had to be copycats. Even their style of attack was similar, ambush heavily crowded places to cause the most amount of damage and terror.

Seeing his future colleagues outnumbered, he made the split decision to help them fight whoever this was. He drew his wand and sprinted to close the distance between the fight and himself.

A quick shield spell to avoid a spell headed straight to the head of one of the aurors signaled his presence. The auror designated to shield duty spun his head around. "No civilians!" the man yelled. But Sorin was no ordinary civilian. He was Soon-To-Be Auror, best duelist to come out of Hogwarts in a Decade and he had something to prove. Professor Flitwick would always remind him that his arrogance would be his undoing, it was time to prove the old wizard wrong.

"Auror in training, Higgins. I will support you." Sorin announced as he was nearing the battle.

The auror made a face but didn't object further as Sorin approached. Being this outnumbered, this was no longer a situation that the aurors had full control over, and they knew it. They had to take all the help they could get.

He had already researched how Auror Squads operated and seeing that they had just lost their first spellslinger, he was certain he could fill that role. Auror squads usually operated in four to five-man groups, that were always on patrolling duty or on deployment together. One auror in the back, defending the group, casting shield charms and deflecting curses. Usually a first and a second spellslinger, the ones that were actually trying to disarm or incapacitate the opponent, a specialist that was usually split from the group to attack from the back, to disrupt larger groups of opponents, usually skilled in evasion and speed and Spec-Ops teams usually also included a designated healer.

He quickly arrived in the fight and giving the aurors a look, he started his curse routine. Since they were up against seven compared to their four, Sorin decided on a strategy that would take out multiple enemies at once. A strong blasting curse to bait out a shield, followed by a rapid succession of Expelliarmus'. His spells, however, just faded into an invisible barrier.

"They have a shielder just like us." The second spellslinger informed him as he was ripping out the cobblestones of the alley to use as ammunition. "Evans is behind them, we need to wait."

Sorin nodded. Evans had to be the specialist and it was the job of the specialist to take out a shielding opponent from behind. He couldn't wait for that though. "What kind of shield?" Sorin asked while deflecting a nasty looking brown curse.

"Arcanum, most likely. None of our spells have pierced." the Shielder from the back replies. The gathering of cobblestones then made sense. Arcanum shields excelled at blocking almost all kinds of magic, yet physical objects usually passed through without any problem.

Sorin quickly nodded and started swirling his wand in an intricate fashion. Soon, the humidity in the air around him started to drop, the water gathering before him, starting to form into a large spike of ice. He fired off his projectile, which was promptly answered by a precise blasting curse from the enemy. Sorin allowed himself a small grin as the second spell he had cast directly after firing the Icicle hit the projectile from the back, neatly splitting it in five smaller, yet equally sharp parts that were geometrically flying out to all sides now.

Sorin grinned as two of the Icicles hit their marks, flying right through the shield and burying themselves deep in the chests of the attackers with a nasty cracking sound. With two gurgling screams, two of the robed individuals went down. Sorin wasn't about to stop though, they were still outnumbered and the rest of the enemies seemed to strike back even harder.

Sorin noticed the spells being cast by their opponents becoming considerably darker. He could make our a few of the incantations and he knew that those spells meant enormous damage should any of them hit. But the shields that were being conjured by the auror held, the stray spells that passed bein easy to dodge.

Sorin knew that keeping up an Arcanum Shield like that would need considerable energy to maintain, so he started to wear the opponent down since he had just started fighting. He held out his hand and pointed his wand at his open palm. " _Fiendfyre._ " he whispered and a ball of black flames began to gather in his hand. Like throwing a ball, he threw the fire towards the shield and pointing his wand at the flames to fuel the fire. The black flames crashed against the shield and started to be absorbed. Arcanum Shields energy consumption scaled proportionally to the power of the spells they were absorbing, so a historically powerful curse like the Fiendfyre would drain the caster of the spell quick.

The black fire continued raging against the shield, nearly consuming the spherical area around the attackers, dark cracks starting to show on the surface of the shield. Sorin hoped, that by keeping the enemy concentrated in keeping up the shield… A shriek echoed through the alley as the enemy Shielder died, a gaping hole in his chest. The remaining auror had done his job. The shield immediately vanished and the Fiendfyre was free to wreak havoc. The dark flames that had taken on the appearance of a hellish bear lunged forward and engulfed two of the remaining copycats before Sorin canceled the spell.

Sorin, who was now panting heavily, and the second spellslinger made quick work of the remaining two opponents, disarming them and knocking them into a stupor, only to be bound tightly by robes. In a matter of a minute, the fight was over.

The second spellslinger and Sorin rushed forward to make sure the enemies were all unable to continue fighting. They took off the masks and felt their pulse on their necks to make sure they were dead and if not, to bind them like they had done with the other survivors. The faces, or at least what was left of them, looked completely unremarkable. Sorin knew none of them and they looked just like random people, nothing sinister or evil about them. This threw him off slightly. He had always imagined his first dark wizards to be evil psychopaths, dying with an insane grin on their scarred face, not a 30-something man, slightly balding, looking mortified in his last moments.

Sorin decided to deal with these emotions later.

As Sorin walked over to the Shielder of the opponents, he bent down and ripped the mask off his face, only to discover that it was actually a female, around his age. He narrowed his eyes, reaching to check her pulse. Then, suddenly, her eyes sprung open, a vicious look on her face, her bloodshot eyes staring right into his own eyes. Sorin immediately withdrew, but it was too late. In one fluid motion, the girl drew a dagger from her waist and rammed it into his leg.

Sorin let out a cry of pain as the blade pierced through his flesh and becoming lodged in his femur. From the side, a stupor hit the girl on the ground and she finally slumped down.

"Ah fuck," Sorin said through gritted teeth, leaning against the nearest wall to support himself. "Fuck fuck fuck."

This wasn't supposed to hurt as much. He wasn't supposed to start feeling lightheaded. He wasn't supposed to faint...

* * *

"You've been poisoned, Mr. Higgins." a familiar voice woke him from his sleep. He hadn't even noticed that he had passed out. He opened his eyes, to recognize the white ceiling of a medical ward. By his bed stood Abby, who was giving him a superior look, as to tell him that this was entirely his fault.

"So that's why I'm feeling like shit," he commented, trying to sit up, only to fall back down in a cold sweat. His body felt like it was inflamed, pulsing with every beat of his heart.

"The doctors said that you should take it easy. They don't know which poison was used, so they had to treat your entire blood for impurities." Abby said as she pushed him back down. "You've been lucky."

"I don't feel lucky," he said.

"You're an idiot," she replied.

"Maybe."

The door to his room flew open and a doctor, followed by two medi-witches walked in. "Higgins? It's good that you're awake, we have something to discuss. Miss McMillan, may I ask you to wait outside for a bit?" the doctor asked.

"It's alright, she can stay." Sorin disagreed. He didn't want to be alone right then.

"Well then." The doctor said and started to explain. "We still haven't found the exact poison that was used on you. All we know that it is very likely deadly if not cured by the right antidote. We have purified your blood, but that doesn't effect the poison that has already gathered in your organs."

"What are you implying?" Sorin asked, slightly unnerved.

"That this poison will kill you, shouldn't we find the antidote." the doctor explained. "The residue in your organs is great enough that it will eventually kill you. The good thing is, we have a good amount of time before that will happen."

Sorin swallowed hard, leaving a burning sensation in his dried out throat. "So I'm going to die, huh?" he asked, his voice sounding weak.

"Not if we can prevent this. I've already send samples of your contaminated blood to the Department of Mysteries and the Toxicological Center in germany." the doctor explained. "If we can isolate the poison, we can develop an antidote. This will however take months, if not years."

Sorin swallowed again. He knew what the doctor implied. Magical poisons could be ridiculously complicated, he knew as much from Abby. The doctor was telling him that there was a timer set on his life, with no guarantee that they might be able to stop it.

"Thank you. I understand." Sorin answered.

The doctor nodded and scribbled something on a note. "I will order a few potions that should slow down the decay of your organs, to buy you as much time as possible." he said, ripped off the note and handed it to one of the Medi-Witches. "Once they are done, you are free to go for now. You shouldn't even notice the poison for a while, but if you feel unwell, seek us immediately."

Sorin just nodded and stared at his hands, trying to process the information that he had just received. When the doctor had left he looked up to look at Abby, who looked just as stunned as he did.

Sorin pressed his hands against his eyes, only to lower them again and sigh. "Man, I'm fucked."

* * *

 _A/N2: I hope you liked the first chapter! I atleast had fun writing it. Leave a review if you liked it too. :)_


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